Mnemoculture and National Museum: Looking at Salarjung National Museum, Hyderabad, India

Abstract

Considering museum as a public site of cultures of memory, my paper will focus on Salar Jung National Museum situated on the banks of the Musi river, Hyderabad. The museum houses the cabinet collections and curios of the Salar Jung family, primarily of Mir Yousuf Ali Khan also known as Salar Jung III. He was the prime minister to the Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan of Hyderabad in 1914. It reserves its history of inception, culture and both personal and public history. The paper treats it as a cosmopolitan mnemocultural site that overrides the ‘national construct’ and refers to the potentiality of the its materiality to tell tales of many cultures, trade links and most importantly of political friendships and the culture of bestowing each other with rare works of art.